It’s been some years since I posted my first experience with these medicines (called 'intense puking and unadulterated pain' by 'bornagain'). In that report, I recounted a harrowing first-time encounter with Cébil. However, as the experience itself left me feeling surprisingly revitalized, I closed the report with some ambivalence towards trying Cébil or Yopo on future occasions. After a few years in between, I decided to try these again and so have, over numerous occasions. In sum, I have found the experiences to be complex and both difficult and rewarding.

Following is my account of recipe, ingestion, effects, and reflections.

My Yopo/Cebil Recipe
1. Toast some seeds in a pan until the skins expand and pop. This is so the skins can be removed.
2. Remove the skins and discard using whatever works. Grind the naked seeds up into a fine powder using a coffee grinder.
3. Weigh this amount using a gram scale.
4. Measure 1/5th of that weight in baking soda and add it to the powdered seeds to form a mixture that is 1/6th baking soda.
5. Put the mixture into mortar bowl. Add just enough water to make a thick sludge. Regrind the mixture with pestle and dry it to a paste (a fan speeds the process).
6. Scrape this paste into a frying pan and toast on medium, stirring and chopping until steam starts to waft off the now coarse powder. Regrind this in the mortar with the pestle until a fine powder is achieved.
7. Store in fridge with absorbent silica packets.

Insufflation
I've found that it is good to have a sitter for this one. If first time or using an unknown batch, start with NO MORE THAN 0.25 g of the prepared snuff. I fivide it into two equal lines and snort it with a tube of some sort. (Having someone else blow it into your nostrils is a good way to send the stuff deep into your sinuses. THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED!!!) I hold it in my nose until the visions start to come on. Then, if desired, I may blow it out. The effects don’t seem to be diminished by blowing after a couple minutes have past.

It’s nice to have the following handy: Kleenex, a damp washcloth, a toilet or wastebasket for puking, a comfortable place to lie down. Some people also might enjoy music, incense, and candles.

Smoking
Smoke crushed, peeled seeds taking big hits in quick succession. This doesn’t seem to get me beyond some nausea and light visuals but can be a mood lifter and way to get used to some of the ill effects before progressing to ingestion by insufflation.

Effects of insufflation
Using Yopo or Cebil is definitely an acquired taste. It isn’t something I just do. It’s something one practices and get better at, perhaps like many other psychedelics. It is short acting, about 2 hours when insufflated, with the most intense part lasting the first hour. Its somatic affects include intense initial pain and pressure in the nasal passages, a great body load (possibly from effects on vasculature and muscle tissue), nausea, dizziness, vomiting, a body buzz, vertigo, flushing of head and extremities (sometimes to purplish hews), and a general achiness all over. These unpleasant effects are most noticeable WHEN MOVING. No information on vital signs available. The nausea seems to predominate for the first 20 minutes. After 5-10 minutes have elapsed, purging is achieved and the nausea reduces to almost nothing when lying still. DMT-like visuals come on fast, at 5 minutes, and peak during vomiting when some startling auditory hallucinations may also be experienced.

Closed-eye visuals seem to have at least two. With eyes closed, the first 15-25 minutes can be a multi-dimensional roller coaster ride through hyperspace. Visions of hyperspace beings, and super dimensional landscapes abound. These mindscapes are responsive to the vomiting, sounds, and others sensations (called synesthesia). A sense that with eyes closed one is really looking at another world with eyes opened predominates- coordinating movements in the physical world around percepts of the closed-eye hyperspace becomes tricky. Visions are colorful in hews of red, blue, and yellow primarily. Visions are dynamic, dimensionally complex (sometimes appearing in three dimensions while rippling or bending in a fourth), layered, and have a frantic life of their own.

After purging, the visuals change slightly in character and intensity but last strongly for another 30 minutes and then wane. This second stage of visuals is less frantic and a headspace is achieved where some exploration through music and meditation seem highly promising. Closed eye visuals are strong but begin to come in waves, gradually waning in intensity. Vast shifting scenes of shapes, patterns and a circus of images parade across a dark multidimensional space; this space can be very responsive to music if some concentration is exerted. Open eyed visuals include trails, shifting patterns on walls, sudden shifts in hews of the entire visual field, unpredictable shifts in perspectives making it impossible to center visually on an object (sometimes called seeing in frames), blurring, and morphing or melting of shapes and contours.

Reflections
As I explore the varied spaces available through this medicine, gradually increasing the amounts I have insufflated (not yet more than ¾ g) I am beginning to understand that what is made available to the user is not so much a state to immerse one’s self in, like a state of drunkenness on alcohol, but a configuration of the mind that opens up a space to be explored visually, musically, spatially, emotionally, and intellectually. What sets this medicine apart from other sorts of 'drugs' such as alcohol or valium or opiates is its responsiveness to practice; that is, you can learn more from each experience about how to fruitfully go about actively experiencing the altered state on subsequent occasions. Place it in the category of exercise, meditation, biofeedback, or specialized skill, rather than drug. I find that yopo and cebil leave me feeling refreshed and happy the following day and the only hangover being a runny nose. I never feel the urge to repeat the experience either, until days or weeks have past. I feel that a direction now to take these trials is through meditative techniques in conjunction with higher dosage levels, a focus being on overcoming the nausea and distracting elements to focus on exploring what can be done within the mind while on this medicine.

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Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the individual authors who submit them.
Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid Center.